Mexico, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island... in that order.

I'm back! I won't be doing a full re-cap on my trip because it was very involved and would seriously take me 8 posts to cover it all. Instead, I will give you just a little snippet as to what I have been up to for the last week and a half. First half of the trip - Mexico, for a close friend's wedding.

While I was in Mexico, I only needed to get in 5 miles on Saturday and then a 3 mile run on Tuesday. Since there was really no where to run, unless I did so on the beach or left the resort (a big scary no for me), we did a bunch of kilometers on the treadmill. Their treadmills are set up way differently than ours are, because I had no idea how far I actually ran. I pretty much just ran for 45 minutes or so at a speed of 10 (clearly not the same) and figured it was about 4 -5 miles. I ended up skipping my Tuesday run since that was the day we left Mexico and we had 12 hours of travel time ahead of us. I needed all the sleep I could get.

Wednesday we woke up in Boston and headed out for a 3 mile run around a nearby park. We really had no idea where we were going, so we ended up just going round and round and then through and around the park over and over. We just ran until we got to 3 miles and called it quits. The route looks quite funny on the Nike app.

I spent the entire rest of Wednesday exploring Boston, so I wish I had gone running after that. We could have gone on a much more fun run around the city than what we did, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

Thursday was another really busy day. After doing some touristy Boston things with my sister in laws, we literally had 20 minutes to get to our hotel, grab our bags, and be on a train towards Providence. I thought I would have time later in the day to go for a run, but it just didn't happen. As soon as we got off the train we were in full wedding planning mode for my sister in law and spending some quality time with family.

On Friday morning, Mike and I woke up with a plan to run 6 miles around his cousin's house. She lives near a park along the water in Rhode Island, so we headed out by 8 am to begin our run. The run started out great on pretty flat land and then we hit the park. For some reason, my knee started bothering me around mile 2 and just wouldn't let up. I had to stop 3 or more times to stretch it out but each time I began running again, it felt awful. I could tell it was very swollen and it hurt the most to stretch it out or bend it completely. With each step I winced in pain. Finally, at 4 miles, Mike made me stop. He told me I was going to end up injuring myself worse, and though he was probably right, I didn't want to listen. I was feeling great and felt like my energy was really high for a 6 mile run. We walked the remaining 2 miles back to his cousin's house.

I was really worried about my knee. I still am a little worried that it is going to interfere with my training. After we ran, I alternated ice on and off for the next few hours which really helped with the pain. I was able to wear heels the next 2 nights without any issues and now my knee feels completely normal. Granted, I haven't ran since that day, so we will see how it goes when I am back at it tomorrow.

We had every intention of running this morning but to be perfectly honest, we are exhausted. We got back into town at 10 pm on Sunday night after a very busy few days with Mike's family and then both of us headed in to work on Monday morning. Right after work last night, we met my mom and her boyfriend half way between our houses to get our dogs and didn't get home until almost 10 pm again, getting us to bed much later than we wanted. There are suitcases and laundry piles all over our bedroom and it took us almost 30 minutes to pack up our gym bags this morning before finally realizing that even if we left at that second, we wouldn't be able to squeeze in a 3 mile run. Instead, Mike jumped in the shower while I cuddled up for 30 more minutes with the pups. I think we are all feeling a very early bedtime tonight. Right after we get some laundry started.

 
My plan is to get my 3 short runs in tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, rest on Saturday, and then get my long (7 mile) run in on Sunday. Then next week I am going to try to get back on my normal Tues, Wed, Thurs, Sat schedule. After talking with a few people about what my knee is feeling like, I think I just have to treat the symptoms by icing after runs and doing some really good stretches before and after each run. Luckily, I can ice my knee at work after my weekday runs, I just worry about allowing myself the icing time on the weekends. I tend to go, go, go on the weekends, but hopefully I can get in some good rest and relaxation for the remaining weeks of my training.

Have a great day! 

I need a little trash...

Hey! Since I didn't get a chance to post about our weekend yesterday, here is a quick recap.

Friday night, I worked at the hospital, so nothing exciting to share. :( I find that when I wake up after working an overnight shift at the hospital, that I just can't jump right into anything. I need a little time to get myself together. This is usually when I open up the DVR and find the trashiest television to mindlessly watch. My favorite is Teen Mom or Jersey Shore, but since I didn't have either of those to watch, 16 and Pregnant was a good replacement.

After about an hour or 2 of that, I am ready to get my day started. It is so strange that I actually need this. It is almost impossible for me to get through the day if I don't spend a few hours doing this after an all nighter... Life is so funny sometimes.

After I was done watching McKenzie and her boyfriend, Josh, find that being 16 and Pregnant was not only hard for the tumbling cheerleader, but also a major embarrassment for their families, I got my Saturday started. We had planned to go to Greenville for the afternoon/evening to celebrate a friend's retirement from the Marines. We headed down a little earlier to spend a little snuggle time with this guy.

My friend put together a really cute retirement party for her brother, Jason, along with his fiance. It was a good time seeing friends, and having a few glasses of wine.

This was the cake. Not only was it gorgeous, but it was delicious! It was red velvet with a cream cheese frosting, and then a fondant decoration. I love the chewiness of fondant, but I can only have a very small amount before the overload of sugar starts to hurt my teeth.

It was a fun time catching up with a few of my best friends. Jennifer, in the middle, is the mama of little P-rez. Doesn't she look great?!

I love that all of my friend's are interested in healthier eating and working out. It is so nice to be able to talk about that kind of stuff with them and to all have a common interest. I feel like they are all so supportive of my lifestyle change, and I am the same with theirs. I think it is really hard to lose any kind of weight when your friends are not on the same page, and it has made my choices so much easier now that they are all going after the same goals.

We headed back to Raleigh after the party and headed straight to bed. I was exhausted!

Our Garden is GROWING!

While I was sleeping on Saturday, Mike took the boys to Lowes to get supplies for his inverted tomato plants. He decided to make some upside down tomato planters, because apparently that is the way to grow tomatoes (he gave me the full run down of why this is the case, but I really can't remember... something about the plants like to be warm or something...).

Don't mind our tall grass, Mike cleaned all that up on Sunday and now our yard looks really clean and maintained, I promise. :)

Our planter boxes are looking really great too. Check out that romaine lettuce! So pretty!


I hope you all had a really great weekend. I am looking forward to the upcoming weekend, since my family and friends will all be in Raleigh.

Have a great day!

Yesterday's Stats:
Calories (-) 454
Sodium (+) 206
Protein (+) 2

P-Rez in the City

Warning - Cute Baby Overload!

This past weekend was busy, without actually doing much of anything. We spent the whole day on Saturday, with this adorable little face.

My friend, Jennifer, was in town to go to a conference, and asked me to babysit. Of course I would! I couldn't wait to snuggle this little guy all day! He did a lot of sleeping, but we ventured out a little to show him what Raleigh had to offer.

We started the morning with a nice long walk. I tried to run with him, but his stroller is super fancy... it has shocks on it, and I couldn't get into a good groove with it. When I would start to get into a stride of running, the wheels seemed to slow down, like they knew we shouldn't be going that fast. So I ended up just doing a nice 3 mile walk around the neighborhood since it was so gorgeous outside.

He was fast asleep within minutes of our walk. I also turned on white noise on my phone, so maybe that is what put him to sleep so quickly.

When we got back, he continued to sleep for a solid 3 hours. I wish I could sleep like that.

When he finally woke up, we decided to venture out for a little late lunch with a good friend at one of our favorite people watching locations, Armadillo Grill.

P-Rez really enjoyed watching the cars pass by. We didn't stay out too long, since we didn't want to chance him getting hungry while we were away from home.

Once we were home, I decided he needed an outfit change... especially after wearing that awful Virginia Tech hat earlier...

Yeah, that is more like it.

That was pretty much our Saturday. We didn't do a whole lot, but what we did do was pretty exciting. I am such a worry wort. I was freaking out the whole time Mike was driving because I was afraid we would get into an accident. Don't even get me started on trying to get the car seat out of the stroller, what a mess! We had to call P's parents a few times to have them walk us through it. And, all the stuff you have to make sure you have with you? My anxiety was at an all time high... I just wanted to get us back to the safety of our house. I wonder if I will ever take my kids out of the house...

But, I think he loved spending the day with Aunt Dee Dee. :) I was pretty excited that we spent 8 hours together and I didn't get pee, poop, or vomit on myself. That is pretty impressive. Of course once his mom got there to pick him up, he puked down her back. HAHA. Thanks, Jenn and Jeremy, for sharing your little man with us! We had so much fun!

On Sunday, I woke up in a complete funk. I just felt like I was in a bad mood, and I didn't want to be. I tried to snap out of it, but I couldn't shake it. We got up and headed to church. I had hoped that would pull me out of my funk... but no such luck. I felt great while we were there, but after leaving, I just wanted to go back to sleep.

I am not a napper. I can not tell you the last time that I laid down in the middle of the day and fell asleep without being sick. After we got home from church and grocery shopping, I laid down on the couch and fell fast asleep. When Mike woke me up at 4, I felt like I could have slept longer.  I wondered if maybe I was getting sick, but I don't feel like I am, so I guess I just really needed the sleep.

After dragging myself off of the couch, I made a pretty intense dinner. I had some beets in my fridge from our weekly produce delivery, and recently saw a recipe for beet ravioli that I wanted to try. It was very involved, since I made the dough from scratch, but the result was pretty amazing.

I followed Eat, Live, Run's recipe for Three Cheese Beet Ravioli exactly. It took a lot of time to make, but Mike helped me a lot and we ended up having dinner around 6.

The recipe made a ton of dough. I actually split it in half and froze the other half for later. I don't really know if pasta dough holds up in the freezer, but after googling a little, we figured we would give it a shot.

We don't have any pastry dough cut outs, so we had to roll with a heart shaped cookie cutter that we have. Hey, it worked!

The only thing I would do differently next time is try to get the dough thinner. In Jenna's instructions, she says that you need to make it almost see through or you will have dense pasta. I couldn't get it that thin using a rolling pin, and the pasta turned out quite thick and dense, but still pretty good. The cheese combination inside was so delicious.

I drizzled some browned butter and brown sugar over the ravioli and put some marinara sauce out for dipping. We also made roasted broccoli to go on the side, which also came in our weekly produce box.

Pretty good dinner! And, it should be pretty good lunch. :)

Yesterday's Stats:
Calories (-) 147
Sodium (+) 564
Protein (+) 8

"I've Got a Fever..."

"...and the only prescription, is more cow bell."  haha.

Mike and I took the day off today to do some shopping and I am really excited for us to get in the Christmas spirit. We had plans to sleep in, get to the mall without crowds to fight around 10, and then shop until we drop, although Mike is totally being a trooper for even going with me, so I doubt we will be dropping from shopping. :) Our plans to sleep in were pretty spoiled from these guys waking us up at 7 am.

Wednesday night, Mike and I had more errands to run after work. I feel like we have had errands every night lately! After running around, Mike offered to buy dinner. I didn't feel like cooking or trying to find anything to eat, so we went to Q'doba.

I am still in a no-meat mood, so I rolled with the grilled veggie burrito. We got our burritos to go and headed home.

these things are so huge! 

I ate half of my burrito with a small side of tortilla chips and salsa. It was pretty filling so I packaged the other half for lunch on Thursday along with a monster honey crisp apple.

I usually don't by apples that big. But, I really wanted to taste this honey crisp apple. I am usually so stuffed from lunch, I don't want to waste half of my apple, so I stick with smaller gala or fuji apples. I only bought 1 of these, just to try.  It was so sweet and tasty but, I was definitely full to the brim afterwards.

We drove to Greenville last night to celebrate one of my best friend's birthdays. Also, she recently had a baby boy who just got home from the hospital, so I was excited to see him. We opted to just eat dinner at her house where she and her husband made a big salad bar with all of the fixings (which I forgot to snap a picture of). I was so happy to not eat out. It was so much more fun (and healthy) to just hang out at the house, hold the baby, and go at our own pace with conversation and wine drinking. Plus, it saves money! Which is pretty key around the holidays.

Baby Fever
I love babies! Especially babies that are close to me (family, friends, etc). I am one that will hold anyone's baby and I love it, but getting to see and hold a baby that means a lot to me, is just so special. I find myself smiling the whole time and just loving every minute. I really look forward to becoming a mom one day, and I probably would have one now, if Mike and I weren't trying to put ourselves in a better financial position first. I really don't want to have a baby until we have a hefty savings, some solid debt paid off, and are in a better position to sell our house. Those may just all be excuses because I am scared to death of having a baby, but it is what makes sense to us right now. :)

Until then, I will just enjoy the amazing babies and kids I already have in my life. And bonus, I get to give them back and sleep through the night. :)

Me and Baby Preston

Gotta go get ready for shopping! Have a great weekend, y'all! Ill post some pictures from this weekend's festivities next week (Tacky Sweater Christmas Party, Decorating our house and tree).


Wednesday's Stats:
Calories (+) 109
Sodium (-) 1857 - damn you Q'doba
Protein (+) 27 


Breakfast - peanut butter and banana on a piece of honey wheat bread
Lunch - Turkey sandwich with ketchup (I know I am weird), green bean casserole, mac and cheese
Dinner - 1/2 Q'doba burrito, chips and salsa
Snacks - 2 dark chocolate Hershey's miniatures